


a dream from which i will not wake

by monyaka



Series: Maybe Interactive 2020 December Prompts [11]
Category: Royal Blood (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, F/M, Insomnia, Maybe Interactive 2020 December Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28174503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monyaka/pseuds/monyaka
Summary: andrew hasn’t texted chloe in days.
Relationships: Andrew Russell/Chloe Taylor
Series: Maybe Interactive 2020 December Prompts [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035726





	a dream from which i will not wake

**Author's Note:**

> this was actually a prompt i got forever ago and i wanted to... write it. it’s in the tattooist au rather than the au where chloe and andrew are classmates but. you know. im out here

normally, andrew texts chloe first thing in the morning. like clockwork, before the sun even rises, she’s gotten a text from him. it’s something simple, a  _ good morning, chloe _ to brighten her day. sometimes, she gets a text like,  _ i miss you _ or  _ i wish i were there to make you some breakfast _ . but she’s grown used to getting those texts every morning. lately, though, he hasn’t been texting her at all.

it’s late afternoon on the third day when she’s sitting down glumly with her phone and a snack of crackers and peanut butter when she decides that there’s no harm in texting first. and so, she does.

[ to: andrew ] hey, andrew.

but as she stares at her sent message, she feels a sudden sense of despair. what if he’s grown tired of her? what if he’s gone off with some other girl? what if she’s broken some unspoken law that says the girl shouldn’t text first? and the worst part of it is that andrew doesn’t text back. she finds herself listlessly picking up her phone, checking the text messages, scrolling back and rereading conversations where andrew would send her heart emojis like he couldn’t possibly send enough. maybe she should have asked him out properly. after all, he never asked her out properly, so maybe he’s just not interested.

she’s sat down to sketch something out, but her wrist feels too stiff, too clunky. she can’t let the piece flow out of her. her mind’s too occupied. so when her phone vibrates on the table, chloe practically dives towards it. and there it is: a text from andrew.

[ to: chloe ] good morning, beautiful ♥️  
[ to: chloe ] and good morning again, and one more time!  
[ to: chloe ] i’m so sorry, my phone has been dead for days. i forgot to charge it  
[ to: chloe ] you’ll forgive me, right?  
[ to: chloe ] 🥺🛐♥️😭😳

and chloe can’t help but laugh and blush despite herself, her vibrant pink eyes scanning over the texts like she can’t quite believe they’re on the screen. it’s ridiculous, how andrew always makes her heart feel like it’s soaring. she almost doesn’t want to reply, wants to just keep this feeling locked inside her chest for all eternity. but she does reply. she has to. and she does it almost immediately.

[ to: andrew ] dummy! i was worried about you.  
[ to: andrew ] how could you not notice your phone was dead?

[ to: chloe ] well… would you believe me if i said i was painting?

she stops short, staring wide-eyed at the screen. before andrew had opened up his tattoo parlour, he’d been a fine arts student just the same as her. she knows that, and she also knows he’d dropped out… and he’d drunkenly confessed to her the other day that he hadn’t been able to paint since. so if that’s the case, and he’s painting now…

[ to: andrew ] i’m coming over.

so she grabs her coat and pulls her arms quickly through the sleeves. and soon, she’s called a cab and has found herself in the lobby of andrew’s apartment complex. the place is nice — she’d remarked on that the first time she’d been here. honestly, she hadn’t expected that he’d be able to afford a place like this. but when she brought it up, he’d bit his lip and changed the subject.

she’d almost wanted to tell him that she has a secret rich side of the family, that there’s no shame in being financially supported. but maybe it’s not that, and she didn’t want to presume. but being here again, in one of the nicer apartments on this side of town, she finds herself wondering anew. but soon, andrew lets her in and smiles broadly at her. but something’s different — that small gesture isn’t making her heart flutter like it usually does.

it’s because his apartment stinks. and so does he. he smells like he’s just put on a spritz of cologne to cover up that he hasn’t showered in days, and his apartment has clearly been hurriedly tidied, without any real cleaning being done. so she glares right at him and says, “you’re not supposed to paint without taking care of yourself! have you even eaten?”

guiltily, andrew folds his arms and averts his gaze. “w-well, i… i couldn’t sleep, so i thought i’d paint. and it really helped, you know?”

she knows. it’s not like she hasn’t done the same from time to time — spent a whole night painting because she didn’t want to close her eyes and be greeted by nightmares. but the dark shadows under andrew’s eyes have only gotten darker, and she has to wonder if he hasn’t texted her because he’s been painting for days on end. a glance at the canvases propped up against the wall makes her feel fairly certain that that’s the case. so it’s time for her to scold him, like a good girlfriend… or, someone he’s seeing… or, a friend… would.

but somehow, she can’t muster up the strength to really scold him. more than being angry or frustrated, she’s worried. “painting  _ is _ really good when you can’t sleep,” she confesses, and she catches how he smiles warmly at her before she continues. “but — but that still doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take a break. your wrist is going to cramp like that.” as if to test her theory, andrew turns his wrist in a few circles and winces. yep… definitely cramped. 

and chloe walks a little closer, a little closer, a little closer. with each step, her heart pounds with embarrassment and adrenaline. slowly, her gaze moves up, takes in andrew’s normally warm and playful eyes. right now, though, he seems so tired. bone-tired, actually. and she places her hands gently on his chest and says, “go take a shower, okay? i’ll clean up your apartment.”

the way andrew frowns in response is absolutely adorable. “i was right. you are an angel. you don’t need to clean anywhere, okay? i’ll shower and make you some tea.  _ promise _ me you won’t clean up for me.”

but chloe doesn’t back down so easily. she’s already picking up the broom and dustpan, and she smiles mischievously at the other. “what? i can’t hear you. i’ll just start cleaning now.”

and by the time andrew emerges with his hair towel-dried and wearing clean clothes, chloe’s managed to open a window, toss his basket of laundry in the wash, and to clean up his dishes. she’s standing at the sink when he sides up next to her, grabbing a washcloth to dry the plates she hasn’t gotten to yet. it’s so simple, so platonic, but it’s making her heart race just having him next to her. come to think of it, they’ve never kissed. the closest they’ve come is on their first date, when he’d kissed her so sweetly on the forehead when he’d put her in the taxi. 

“why couldn’t you sleep?” she’s asking that before he can drop one of his lines on her, the ones that are always so earnest that they make her go bright red. so it’s his turn to go red, to gaze at her like a lost lamb.

and finally, he speaks. “to tell you the truth, i usually can’t sleep at night. i’m what you call a nocturnal creature.” she stares at him, and he amends, “i have insomnia.”

chloe doesn’t know a lot about insomnia, if she’s being honest. she’s read in books that it helps if someone you love sleeps besides you, but she has a feeling that it might not be as practical as just that. there has to be some kind of medication for that, or some kind of sleep therapy. but since she doesn’t have anything of the sort, she’s decided that it couldn’t hurt to just stay with him until he falls asleep.

he’d kicked up a little bit of a fuss, but eventually he’d conceded. he’s tired, chloe can see it, and it looks like he desperately needs sleep. they open up a bottle of wine together, with chloe teasing that the two of them are going to turn into alcoholics sooner or later. andrew sits on his bed and tells her about his past, and eventually she sits beside him and tells him about hers. it turns out they’re more similar than they’d thought. she’d never had any siblings, and the one cousin she does have is more of a family screw-up than someone to look up to, but she understands what it’s like to feel estranged from them. to feel like you aren’t really family in their eyes. what with his eldest brother going on to help his father in the family business and the middle one serving the country, it’s normal to feel like… well, an art student. fundamentally rejected, doing a whole lot of nothing for a very small reward.

“the only way i could even afford this place in the beginning was because of my dad,” andrew had said. “it was so humiliating for me. i mean, i know he doesn’t mind, but it was humiliating having to rely on him.” with the sun having already set, the room looks ethereal in the moonlight. and andrew himself looks like he’s out of a fairy tale, his eyes twinkling with adoration and his skin shining pale in the soft light. and his voice is just as quiet, just as sweet. she tells herself firmly that she can’t sleep, that she has to wait for him to drift off first, but her eyes keep on closing. and closing… and closing…

“they say that the thing you were thinking of just before you fall asleep will appear in your dreams.” andrew’s voice is a whisper, a loving sound as he places a blanket over chloe’s sleeping form. he’s been painting pictures inspired by her for days, but those canvases are all forgotten in the wake of chloe herself, lying there. her hair is splayed out on his sheets, and her face is a perfect mask of relaxation. “is it selfish, to hope that you’ll dream of me?” he doesn’t dare touch her while she’s sleeping, not even to press a soft kiss to her forehead. but even as he stays awake, watching her at first, and then going to tidy up his apartment so she won’t feel like she has to, he finds that he dreams of her too. constantly, without end. his thoughts are always occupied by her, and it’s the sort of dream from which he hopes he never wakes.


End file.
